On a hot day with a good team out on paper, Leake were hit by a try within three minutes when a breakdown on halfway was defended poorly on the wide blindside and Retfords’ winger scored in the corner which was converted for 7-0.

Poor ball retention in contact gifted field position to Retford time and again and a training ground move enabled their outside centre to score under the posts.

Another blind side move from a long way out ended with a further try from their backs as tackles were missed and both tries were converted for 21-0.

Leake got on the scoreboard with a penalty from George Spiteri then started playing sensible, positional rugby to engineer a five metre line out which was driven over for a try amid a mass of bodies. Spiteri missed the conversion.

Straight from the kick off deep into the Leake 22, the ball was cleared to touch only 20 metres out. Retford threw to the back of the lineout and poped inside to their large and fast moving number eight who crashed through all in his path to score a converted try on the stroke of half time. Leake had a mountain to climb at 28-8 down, but the strong wind was in their favour.

One converted try was scored by Leake from forward pressure and with plenty of time left a win could have been fashioned.

A combination of good goalline defence from Retford, poor decision making and lack of final support runners from Leake and a couple odd refereeing decisions conspired to keep Leake scoreless for the remainder of the half as East Leake ended on the wrong side of a 28-15 scoreline.